Used to watch this show during the day when I would come home from school early and there was nothing else on. R.I.P Jerry, the entertainment was... awakening to how some people actually live life.
To be honest, it's extremely common wherever the impoverished are located in the U.S. I've witnessed so much chaos from inner-city venturing, to growing up with some households that absolutely belonged on that show.
While these shows in the 90s were the beginning of the scripted reality TV genre, these talk shows were an interesting blend of scripted situations concocted by the producers and real world situations that were greatly exaggerated for drama purposes. People were encouraged to call in with their situations (whether they were real or not on your end was up to you) and producers would work with you to get the best angle for maximum drama.
> and thought that this was depicting typical average American life
The show was very bizarre. It invariably selected for the lunatic fringe of America. These people and their wild stories were all edge cases and definitely atypical.
If you want a good hearted laugh - partially at his expense but I’m sure he would have laughed too - Red Letter Medias “least viewed episode ever” about Springer: https://youtu.be/RTosyCJQrmA
Dude is as American as sickly-sweet, high fructose, made-in-Mexico Apple pie. That’s pretty American in my book.
“…and at the memorial service his estranged half-brother from a different mother stormed out from behind the mourning crowd, flipped over the casket, and screamed, ‘Gimme ma goddamn money!’”
I mean, honestly yes. His show was shocking because it was so surprising how people behaved. In truth, it was a foreshadowing. The momentum had already began back then.
The first half of this obit goes harder than you may guess.
> There is nothing about “The Jerry Springer Show” to be applauded — after all, his guests, representing an enormous variety of lifestyles deviating from what is perceived as the norm, were packaged as freaks and brought onstage to be mocked by the audience, and to be (at least seemingly) sternly judged by Springer.
There's a lot of interesting lines to be studied between this show and media in the current era, from Fox News to TikTok to politics to the comment sections. Something about intentionally rallying the worst emotions we can conjure up out of vulnerable people for the ratings.
What stands out to me are the comparisons to Donahue, as if he were some serious sort of journalist that Springer made a mockery of. And while Donahue did sometimes try to be serious, sweeps month for Donahue could seem much like Springer ended up becoming, in kind if not degree.
After watching Jerry Springer: The Opera a few years back I looked up some interviews with Springer; I was curious what he thought of it. He seemed like a pretty nice guy with some fairly down to earth views of his show and its participants.
Talks shows and COPS largely preyed on the post-industrial American working class, bereft of opportunity, and gave the mass of socially conservative, a band that crosses party lines, an anchor for their anxiety of the growing plurality of identity.
Jerry Springer was born during WWII in London subway station that had been converted to a bomb shelter, to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazis in Poland. He claimed 27 members of his family were killed by Nazis.
Your opinion of his show and his contributions to the culture are yours, and are valid. But to group him into some ivory tower, privileged, "insider" class is disingenuous. His start was about as difficult as any -- fleeing the real, 6-million-Jews-killed Nazis (not today's tv-news "these people we don't like are Nazis"), no wealth or connections, immigrating to a new country. His success (and downfall) in politics was purely his own. Further success in news and then his TV show were again, his own making. He attended good colleges, indeed, but not any Ivy League schools, and certainly not because he had alumni connections or big donations.
You're allowed to not like him, even despise him if you wish. But don't lie about his circumstances.
Same here, where probably less than 0.001% of the population know who he was. I can't imagine what's the logic behind blocking something that doesn't consume measurable bandwidth.
I'd have to think this and WWF and maybe some other things were models for Fox News. maybe the formula was more straightforward -- white nationalist identity politics?
Don't post generic news that has no interest to our focus. There are a million other sites and Reddit.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
This is actually a borderline case. One could imagine a good HN thread sharing memories about Springer and thoughts about his impact on the culture. IIRC, he himself was more interesting than those prime-time bloodbaths implied.
On the other hand, there are stories where it's to HN's advantage not to cover it, because it provides a marker about what kind of site this isn't. "That what we not do", as my son said when he was 2. That's your argument too (obviously) and I appreciate your standing up for the site guidelines!
We decided for the latter rather than the former, but I'll stick up enough for Jerry to say that it wasn't an obvious call.
I take issue with mainstream news because it's already beaten to death elsewhere, distracting from more important news like the passing of a truly incredible human being like Harry Belafonte. Or the 2 newspapers Ralph Nader is running. Or perhaps the potentially innocent person Oklahoma is determined to execute. The corruption scandal around Clarence Thomas doesn't get enough play. There's a good deal more deserving provincial American news than an opportunist who exploited people for ratings and money.
I don't know about Ralph Nader's newspapers, but if there's something intellectually interesting about them that you want to post, you're certainly welcome to.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] threadThe show was very bizarre. It invariably selected for the lunatic fringe of America. These people and their wild stories were all edge cases and definitely atypical.
*sigh*
It's sad he passed away, though. Even I knew the "The Jerry Springer Show". Trash TV at its finest.
If you want a good hearted laugh - partially at his expense but I’m sure he would have laughed too - Red Letter Medias “least viewed episode ever” about Springer: https://youtu.be/RTosyCJQrmA
Dude is as American as sickly-sweet, high fructose, made-in-Mexico Apple pie. That’s pretty American in my book.
> There is nothing about “The Jerry Springer Show” to be applauded — after all, his guests, representing an enormous variety of lifestyles deviating from what is perceived as the norm, were packaged as freaks and brought onstage to be mocked by the audience, and to be (at least seemingly) sternly judged by Springer.
There's a lot of interesting lines to be studied between this show and media in the current era, from Fox News to TikTok to politics to the comment sections. Something about intentionally rallying the worst emotions we can conjure up out of vulnerable people for the ratings.
The Have I Got News For You episode he did a bunch of years ago is pretty good as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luYG9uWnVDY
The big difference is that on Jerry Springer, the father is more likely to be the mother's brother.
Trash tv largely scripted as he punched down from his Ivy League, wealthy throne.
And "plurality" as opposed to a single identity or strictly bifurcated classification (e.g., male/female, black/white, Catholic/Protestant, etc.).
Jerry Springer was born during WWII in London subway station that had been converted to a bomb shelter, to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazis in Poland. He claimed 27 members of his family were killed by Nazis.
Your opinion of his show and his contributions to the culture are yours, and are valid. But to group him into some ivory tower, privileged, "insider" class is disingenuous. His start was about as difficult as any -- fleeing the real, 6-million-Jews-killed Nazis (not today's tv-news "these people we don't like are Nazis"), no wealth or connections, immigrating to a new country. His success (and downfall) in politics was purely his own. Further success in news and then his TV show were again, his own making. He attended good colleges, indeed, but not any Ivy League schools, and certainly not because he had alumni connections or big donations.
You're allowed to not like him, even despise him if you wish. But don't lie about his circumstances.
That this kind of blocking still exists in 2023 is astounding
Archive: https://archive.ph/MiqYX
Don’t blame the poster, blame the publisher.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
On the other hand, there are stories where it's to HN's advantage not to cover it, because it provides a marker about what kind of site this isn't. "That what we not do", as my son said when he was 2. That's your argument too (obviously) and I appreciate your standing up for the site guidelines!
We decided for the latter rather than the former, but I'll stick up enough for Jerry to say that it wasn't an obvious call.
I take issue with mainstream news because it's already beaten to death elsewhere, distracting from more important news like the passing of a truly incredible human being like Harry Belafonte. Or the 2 newspapers Ralph Nader is running. Or perhaps the potentially innocent person Oklahoma is determined to execute. The corruption scandal around Clarence Thomas doesn't get enough play. There's a good deal more deserving provincial American news than an opportunist who exploited people for ratings and money.
I don't know about Ralph Nader's newspapers, but if there's something intellectually interesting about them that you want to post, you're certainly welcome to.